If your guild/group needs an extra 2-3% dps to get past an encounter, they're failing at some other aspect of the fight. Period.

What if it's not strictly related to *just* the DPS? Lets say that there seems to be some crazy raid damage which could come down to a lack of raid CD's. You might say that's hard to believe, but it DOES happen and something like this really shows in 10mans. Lets quickly flashback to something like Magaera for instance.

Sure, we could just keep on going but wouldn't it be more a lot more forgiving if we had something to counter the 'oh-shi' moments? It doesn't necessarily have to relate to personal fails - I'm talking about unavoidable raid damage as a whole. So for example, if a RL could choose between an anh shaman or a hunter, and he/she is in this position where the raid's health just seems to be spiking too much and we're losing people, who would he/she choose?

Baring in mind that both players are equally as geared, skilled, have the encounter experience and deal a similar amount of DPS. We could even say they're very likable and friendly if you want to put it that way too. Who would you take? I'd obviously choose the enh shaman in these circumstances. Again, you could argue that it should still work with the Hunter, and that it would still be doable with the Hunter, but just how long will you keep trying when you already have a rough idea of where the problem lies?

Player A does 300k DPS and has a CD to either keep the raid alive or add to the raids DPS.
Player B(hunter) ALSO does 300k DPS BUT has no CD to help the raid in any way.

Keeping both players in mind, if you're struggling on an encounter, whether it's due to DPS or healing, who would you bring?

It's not just who you bring for that boss but who you recruit and how you structure your raid team from the start. If I have a lock and a hunter and am equally good at both and it's the start of WoD which toon would a RL want me to level and gear up? Almost certainly the lock. Don't like lock vs hunter? Then shammy. Same thing.

Also, on this whole min/max subject, why is it worthless for a less progressed guild to do so? They want to kill a boss just as badly as the next guild. Why not use what they have to their fullest potential? Obviously the skill level of the less progressed guilds isn't high enough to carry them through encounters, so they'll use every possible thing they have at their disposal.

The fact that 100+ guilds have killed it before them does not decrease their desire to kill the boss.

No, but less progressed guilds usually have more things to fix than top guilds. A top 20 guild usually will have people playing very close to as well as a class can be played. Likewise, they're more likely to have geared up optimally for whatever stage of progress they're at. Ditto for reforging, gemming, etc. At that level, class differences are one of the only variables left.

Less progressed guilds are usually going to be less progressed because at least some of this isn't true and fixing that will matter more than class differences.

Part of the issue is that this doesn't affect the big broad middle of the bell curve of guilds who likely are looking at a very good hunter not vs a very good lock but a decent lock, or they'll have social and personal reasons for bringing players. The ugly truth here is that outside of the top 50 or so guilds this issue is a lot less impactful and those guilds aren't a noticeable percentage of the player base.

That doesn't mean it should not be fixed though. Even if it doesn't 'matter' it's still important to players. For example, I might only ever raid normal in WoD... but I'm leaning strongly toward making an insta-90 lock and leveling that vs my hunter since the lock will simply be a better DPS toon. THAT is why this should be fixed, not for the top few guilds, but so that players can play what they want and not feel they're settling for a subpar class by doing so.

People have gone to 77+ just from what I have seen on this forums, with 463 gear. 440 ilvl could be mostly 463 ilvl gear, with some leveling crap thrown in there. There is also the chance that...perhaps he...lied? But why would someone just go on the internet and lie?

ITT: People who have never been on the "cutting edge" where 1% dps actually matters, and where raid cool downs matter even more.

You don't need to be a high ranking guild for low percentage wipes to matter. My guild only gets about 3 hours of progress a week and I can't tell you the number of times that a raid cooldown we didn't have or me benching myself for any of the 3-4 classes that do 15% more damage than Hunters for free would've snagged a kill and saved our guild some of our very precious limited time. It all matters on some relative scale. Your elitism is useless here.

Really REALLY curious how you can look at that data and say Hunters are anywhere near the top. A low-mid at best.

568 Warlocks do more DPS than absolutely perfect BiS Hunters at 579.

That's because warlocks are fucking overpowered, and the new favorite child at Blizz HQ. The warlock cock stroking is way, way, way out of control this expansion. They pretty much devoted all of the class dev time to warlocks. And because they had so many ppl flocking to the class, they had to water them down and make them strong to keep the bitching down.

So don't even bring warlocks into the discussion. They are removed from the other classes as far as I'm concerned.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Mirishka

Sounds like the only 'shit' that needs to change is your current choice of guild.

I understand wanting to absolute minmax if you're in the world first race, but at this point? Its utterly stupid to burn bridges with friends and guildies over a miniscule gain. There's no reason whatsoever to. If your guild/group needs an extra 2-3% dps to get past an encounter, they're failing at some other aspect of the fight. Period.

What if they aren't? What if they have a few members with really bad luck with drops? That 2-3% isn't always to compensate for the mistakes of other people. And you're crazy if you think that a progression guild is going to take the class capable of less over the class capable of more.

Perfect example of why "community" forums are poisonous to the health of a development team. These developers are wasting hundreds of hours trying to stem the tide of incessant bitchery that would never, ever abate so long as these entitled, unfortunate human beings don't get their way.

You don't need to be a high ranking guild for low percentage wipes to matter. My guild only gets about 3 hours of progress a week and I can't tell you the number of times that a raid cooldown we didn't have or me benching myself for any of the 3-4 classes that do 15% more damage than Hunters for free would've snagged a kill and saved our guild some of our very precious limited time. It all matters on some relative scale. Your elitism is useless here.

When you're killing bosses 10 items levels higher than the early kills, it is definitely a learn to play issue on your raid's part. But that being said, yes, raid cool downs matter a lot.

When you're killing bosses 10 items levels higher than the early kills, it is definitely a learn to play issue on your raid's part. But that being said, yes, raid cool downs matter a lot.

I'm not saying we couldn't be playing better. I know that's a factor for any mid level guild like mine. That doesn't rule out that a missing raid CD or that little extra bit of DPS could still net a kill though. I think anyone trying to beat this kind of content no matter what the pace should be doing what they can to optimize what they've got. If you've got mid level players with very small amounts of time and bringing in a rogue in place of a warrior for that extra DPS nets a kill then so be it. A kill is a kill regardless.

Now I'm also not blaming low percentage wipes solely on lacking DPS or cooldowns. Some people might be making that case in this thread, I don't know, but that's wrong. Mid level guilds make mistakes and can definitely play better, I acknowledge that. It's ignorant to think that an optimal raid comp isn't helpful regardless though. You don't need to just settle for what you have because you're not pushing for rankings. At the end of the day we all just want to kill the bosses.